In a study released by the University of California, San Francisco and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that marijuana users did not suffer any detrimental effects to lung capacity with occasional use. This is contradictory to the established notion that any smoke is going to have a negative impact.
The study notes that more frequent use does have a negative impact and made a somewhat dubious claim that smoking 20 joints a month is considered a lot and would be unusual. Anecdotal evidence suggests this amount is not as unusual as the study authors might believe based on what those surveyed reported.
The study consisted of 5,115 men over 20 years. To put the idea of comparing tobacco with marijuana in perspective, University of California, Berkeley lecturer and researcher Amanda Reiman notes to the Chronicle:
No one would ever claim that drinking water has the same effect as drinking vodka, even though they’re both liquids and you’re ingesting them the same way. But for some reason we have assumed that because we know the negative outcomes with cigarettes, inhaling any plant material is going to have the same outcomes.
Being published by an established medical school and in an established journal should help bring credibility to the counter-intuitive results of the study.
Source: SF Chronicle
